by the skins of our teeth
by LowkeyLyesmiths
Summary: they're not bad people, they just come from a bad place. (A Guy and Isabella fic which mostly involves angst as they travel through France)
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** summary is a quote from Shame, this is one of many fics I found on my old laptop and awh. memories!

Enjoy.

* * *

If Guy closes his eyes just right he can picture a happy family. Before his father left, before he became a leper. He can picture his father swinging him up above his head and spinning him around, he can picture his parents dancing together a the village fair, he can picture his sister laughing, playing, blossoming.

But sometimes if he turns his head just right he can see the cracks, the blurred edges. He can hear his parents arguing (_how am I to raise our children without you!?) _he can see the lingering glances between his mother and Locksley, he can see his sister's smile fade away.

* * *

He's five when Isabella's born, his grandfather keeps him outside and sings songs with him as they pick apples. Eventually his father calls him inside, his eyes are all red and he's smiling. "Come meet your little sister, Guy," he says. "Come meet Isabella."

His mother hands her to him gently and Guy stares at her in awe. She's so tiny, so fragile. So perfect.

"This is your little sister," his mother says. "She's ours to raise, ours to protect. Can you do that Guy? Will you help me look after her?"

Guy nods, wide eyed.

"Promise?

"Oui, mama."

* * *

News travels fast around these parts and its not long before he and Isabella aren't welcome in most of the towns along the road to Portsmouth.

"I want to go home," Isabella says, quiet and defiant the first night they sleep in the forest. It's autumn, it's starting to get cold and its been raining. He's built a rickety lean-to shelter, managed to start a weak fire with the few dry branches he could find. It took him a while to get the blaze going (he managed to start the fire at home easily enough.)

He hands Isabella his cloak. She accepts it and drapes it around her scrawny shoulders, he wonders if she was always to skinny or if its just because they're not eating properly anymore. "I want to go _home_." She repeats.

"We _can't_," he snaps, glares. She's not a little kid, at ten she should be able to work out what happened. "We're not welcome there anymore."

Or anywhere in England for that matter. He sighs, runs a hand through his grimy hair. "Things will be better in France." He says, unwrapping the last of their food. They can go to their grandparent's village, it might be smaller than Locksley but its better than nothing. He breaks the mouldy bread in two, hands Isabella the larger part.

"I don't _want _to go to France," she says petulantly.

"Neither do _I._"

Isabella glares at him, picking out mould and flicking it in his direction. "If we can't even afford food how are we going to afford passage to France?"

"I don't know." He mumbles, burying his face in his hands. _This wasn't supposed to be like this._

* * *

They have to stay in the port a week before they secure passage. They stay on a cramped hostel full of soldiers and sailors who look at Isabella in all the wrong ways. On the second night he cuts her hair off, hands a tunic and trousers and boots, it's safer (if only marginally) to be a boy. She weeps and pounds at him and swears she hates him but he promised his mother once that he'd protect her and he fully intends to do so. (It's his fault there mother isn't here anymore - Isabella knows it too.)

He works a few odd jobs around the docks to pay for board and food, sells Isabella's dress. It's not much but they survive.

* * *

He finds passage with a merchant sailor who'll take them to Le Harve for all of Guy's money and his _services_ on board. The crossing should only take a few hours. Guy can handle that. He's not ignorant to the ways of the world, he'll do what he needs to to keep them both safe even if does involve playing catamite to dirty sailors and rich merchants.

"I miss mama," Isabella says as they look out over the ocean. When they made this crossing before Isabella was just a babe, squalling in his mother's arms. She shouldn't have to suffer for his sins. "And father. And _home._"

He puts an arm around her thin shoulders. She shrugs him off. "This is all _your _fault." She tells him tearfully.

"I know," he murmurs.

She looks up at him, bites her lip and for a moment he thinks she might apologise but before she can the merchant calls him and Guy's sure he can smell the man's foul breath from here.

"_BOY!"_

Isabella clutches at his cloak as he turns to go, "Guy..."

"I'll be fine," he smiles as he gently untangles her fingers from the fabric. "Just stay here, keep your head down. I won't let anybody hurt you."

* * *

France is a lot bigger than England, a lot wilder, a lot colder.

It'll take them weeks to get from Normandy to their family's home in Lorraine, months even. They'll need provisions which means they'll need money. They stay in La Havre for almost a month, Guy tries not to let Isabella out of his sight but there are some jobs he does not want her to see. He teaches her French and keeps her hair cut short. They meet a kind family who lets them board for free.

He manages to buy them two cloaks and boots and packs full of food. A dagger for Isabella, a sword for him. If they'd stayed a few months longer he could have bought a horse but he doesn't feel clean in La Havre. He doesn't feel _right. _And there are still too many people who look at his little sister the wrong way.

"How long will it take us to get there?" Isabella asks, glaring moodily at the flames. They're camping in an abandoned farm house.

"I don't know."

She glares at him. "Do grandpa and grandma even know we're coming?"

He shakes his head. They could have written ahead, tried to find someone to carry it there but it would have cost more money, money they could ill afford. Besides there was no guarantee the message would even reach them. He wonders if they even know his mother's dead.

"How do we know they still live there?"

Guy sighs. _We don't._

"Are they even still alive?" She growls, "Do they know about mother? About father?"

"I don't _know._"

"Is there anything you know?" She snaps angrily.

"Go to sleep Isabella."

"It's too cold to sleep," she grumbles. "And there might be wolves out here."

Guy snorts and tosses his cloak to her. "I won't let you get eaten by wolves, Isabella. You don't need to be scared."

She lies down, wrapping herself in both cloaks. "I'm not _scared._"

He smiles a little at the tremor in her voice, "Sure you're not."

* * *

They're somewhere in Picardie when they meet their first group of outlaws. They sweep out of the forest clad in black and hiss like demons swarming out of hell and Guy is too cold and too tired to fight but he has to for his sister.

"Run," he says pushing her out of a small hole in the cave they're sheltering in. "_Run, Isabella!"_

"Guy!" She cries and their footsteps get louder.

"I'll find you, I promise!"

He doesn't. She finds him, beaten and bloodied but at least she's safe. "They took all our food," he chokes.

She shushes him, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

She looks up at him, tearing a spare shirt into strips for bandages. "Saying it was your fault."

He turns his head away, "It was, though."

"No," Isabella says quietly. "It was an accident."

_That doesn't mean it wasn't my fault, _Guy thinks.

* * *

They make it to their Grandparents home after three months.

They're cold and hungry and so, so tired and Isabella cries when their grandmother opens the door.

Guy tells them about their parents death, a fire, tragic. Leaves out the bit about leprosy and his mother's proposed marriage. His grandmother cries, his grandfather watches him with hard cold eyes, his mouth a grim line, he grumbles about English stupidity and how he never should have let them leave. When its all said and done he ad Isabella go to bed full and warm and _safe_ for the first time in months.

Of course it doesn't last.

Six months after they arrive a messenger arrives from Locksley, an old family friend who tells his grandfather all about the leprosy. Their grandfather is none to pleased, kicks them out snarling about dishonour.

They go back to living by the skins of their teeth, cold and hungry and desperate but they _survive. _

* * *

When Lord Thornton offers to marry Isabella Guy says yes without a second thought.

They're living in a one room hovel in Pas-De-Calais, Guy's not entirely sure why they're there but they both have work, they have a small straw mattress and a few thin ratty blankets. It's more then they've had in years (which is actually kind of sad.) But they still have to go for days without eating sometimes. Thornton offers him enough money to get back to England, to live comfortably for a time, at least until he can get Locksley back.

And with money comes power and since the sailors, since the outlaws, since he lost everything in one day Guy's never wanted to be powerless again.

This marriage is far beyond what he could have dreamed for Isabella, she'll be well looked after, fed, clothed. Maybe she'll grow to love him in time. If she stays here they'll likely starve to death or freeze when winter comes, or be murdered in their beds by thieves."No," she says immediately when he tells her. "No. I won't."

He sighs, she looks more like their mother everyday but the clench of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, that is all their father. He cannot watch her starve here, cannot let her degrade herself for food and shelter as he has done. "I have already said yes, Isabella."

She scowls at him, hands on her hips. "_No, _Guy! I don't _want_ to marry! I want to stay with you! You don't get to control my life!"

He's tired. He really doesn't want to argue with her. "He's rich, Isabella. You'll want for nothing. You'll never go hungry again."

"Like you care," she snaps. "I bet you're only doing this because he'll pay you! I'm your sister, Guy! You're supposed to care about me."

"It's already _done, _Isabella. He'll arrive tomorrow." He turns away before Isabella starts stamping her feet, breaking their few plates and pans. He heads to tavern and talks himself into a few free ales before going home.

"I hate you," Isabella hisses, venom in here voice. "If you hadn't gone to visit father none of this would have happened."

"I know."

"Father never would have sold me, mother wouldn't have let him."

"I know."

"It's your fault they're dead."

"I _know._"

"You said you wouldn't let anyone hurt me."

_I know._

* * *

Thornton arrives early the next morning, an ornate horse drawn cart and three man servants. Guy pretends he doesn't see the cruelty in his smile, the way he digs his fingers into his sister's skin.

He wants to say _no, you can't, I won't let you. _But he can't. If he does Thornton will probably kill him and take Isabella anyway (_and you're __**letting **__him take her_) at least this way he can pretend he has control.

_I'm sorry,_ he wants to say as Thornton hands him a bag of gold, _I'm sorry Isabella._

"Don't make me do this." She says, _pleads. _"You don't have to let him take me." Her breath hitches, "Guy, _please._"

Guy bites his tongue. "Goodbye, Isabella."

His sister sobs as Thornton's men push her into the carriage and Thornton shoots him a grin that makes him want to throw up or drown in ale or both.

He's lucky it's raining. It wouldn't do to be seen crying.

* * *

When he gets back to England he travels a little, works as a guardsman, he's always been good with swords.

Then he meets Vaisey. Vaisey who whispers that he could be great, that he could get his father's lands back, that he could be powerful. And Guy eats it up.

Vaisey keeps caged song birds in his room so that when he's angry he can snap their necks. It takes Guy longer than it should to realise he's just another caged bird.

Vaisey keeps him in a cage of half-promises and growled threats, _no one else would hire you Gisborne, son of leper, __**failure**_. And when Vaisey's in a particularly bad mood (when Hood and his men escape, when the taxes are too few) he creeps to Guy's room and makes him _sing._

Guy loses himself sometime after meeting Vaisey, he's stripped away and stitched back together in all the wrong ways. But at least he's not cold and hungry. At least he has some power, even if it is just over peasants. And at least he gets Locksley back, for a time anyway.

Guy does what he has to do to survive because really, that's all he's ever been able do.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **isabella is a lot harder to write! so this is a bit rubbish .

* * *

The first time her father dies She's on the hill picking wild flowers. when the man arrives, soldiers uniform, healthy black gelding, They follow him, her and her friends, he's not someone they know, not a returning soldier so he must be a messenger. And messengers never bring good news. They gossip and theorise about who's father or brother or son it is this time; the Miller or the blacksmith's boy or maybe the farmer's brother. It never occurs to her that it might be her father, but then the gelding trots up to her doorway and the man swings off heavily, sighs and raps on the door.

Her mother cries, her brother breaks a chair, punches a wall and runs off to the forest but Isabella can't help feeling a little relieved. Her father had been a soldier his whole life, he'd always been too quick to raise his fists to her or Guy. At least this way they're safe. But still there's an ache she can't name in her breast at the knowledge that her father will never come marching back home, never swing her up in to his arms and call her Belle (it means beautiful - mama told her so) and she cries as her mother strokes her hair and sings songs in French.

When Guy comes back there's a bruise on his cheek and she knows he's been fighting with Locksley again because his father turns up and apologises (even though Guy started it) and her mother starts crying all over again.

* * *

She doesn't get a chance to gather her possessions before they leave Locksley, all she has is the dress she's wearing, her mother's necklace and her brother. She doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to go back to France. She doesn't remember France, doesn't even speak the language well.

Her mother is dead. So is her father (again). Her home is gone. All her dresses, all her jewellery. Things like that shouldn't matter but they do. They mean so much more now her parents are gone. She can picture them all in her head: the dress her mother sewed for her ninth birthday, the one father bought from London when he returned from the Holy Land, the one she was to wear to mother's wedding.

And Guy doesn't seem to care. He just grits his teeth and carries on.

She hates him for it.

"I hate you," she tells him the first night they camp in the woods.

He looks at her, "I know."

"This is your fault," she spits.

He sighs sadly, "I know."

She bites her lip and turns away.

* * *

She's never been to France.

She's never wanted to go. England is her home.

They don't have enough money for passage and Isabella is glad. It means they can be in England a little longer. Their room at the hostel is cramped and smells like blood and sweat but its better than the forest and roadsides.

On the second night Guy comes at her with a knife and for one absurd moment she thinks he's going to kill her. He doesn't, of course he doesn't. But he does cut her hair shirt no matter how loudly she protests. When he's done he shoves a shirt and breeches into her arms that stink to high heaven and says, "Change."

Isabella laughs at him. Her dress might be grubby and worn but its better than those stinking rags, "No," she says. "I won't."

"Isabella," he says tiredly. "_Please."_

"_No."_

They argue and eventually she relents and Guy sells the dress her mama made her. He doesn't make her sell mama's necklace though and for that she is glad. She lies awake that night and cries herself to sleep.

"I won't let anyone hurt you," Guy says on the crossing to France when the captain is calling him.

Isabella believes him.

* * *

The hunger isn't so bad once she gets used to it. In fact after a while she doesn't even feel it anymore. Not until they pass through a market or by an inn and the scent of meat and bread and broth calls back that gnawing rumble in her stomach and has her dreaming if feasts at Locksley and trying to recall the taste of roast meat and fresh bread.

On days like that Guy will usually give her half of his share.

It's the cold that is unbearable, the cold and the damp. It's the kind of cold that knits itself into your bones and has you shuddering uncontrollably under your cloak and clothes and blanket. The kind of cold that their pitiful fires does nothing to chase away.

She gets sick once, delirious with a fever that has her sweating and chattering and crying out for mama. Guy frets and mops her brow and steals some medicine (and gets caught and whipped) "Don't let me die," she tells him in her broken French. "Don't let me _die."_

"Never," he says. "Never."

* * *

When they meet their first band of outlaws and Guy sends her away to hide she regrets everything she's ever said to her brother. If they kill him she'll die too.

She crouches in the bushes outside the cave and pleads and prays and begs with God to let her brother live, _it wasn't his fault, it wasn't, it wasn't. _

Her brother lives, bruised and bloody but he lives.

_Thank you, _she thinks. _Thank you._

* * *

Their grandmother sings to her like her mother used to. She cooks them cakes and pastries and extravagant meals.

Isabella starts to forget the ache of three day hunger and the deep bone chill of winter outdoors. She plays and reads and helps around her grandparents farm. Her hair grows long again and her grandma buys her new dresses. It is, Isabella, thinks a lot like what heaven must feel like.

But them the messenger comes and they're alone again. On the run. Starving. Cold.

Sometimes she thinks her grandparent's farm was just a dream.

They get work where they can, picking fruit and harvesting in the summer, scrubbing floors and washing dishes in the winter. Sleeping in barns and ruins and doorways. But mostly they wonder, sleeping in forests and caves and roadside ditches.

* * *

By the time they reach Pas-de-Calais they have enough for a small room and _mattresses_. They even get a hot meal every now and again. They both have work, Guy at the dockyard, Isabella at an inn. It's wonderful. Guy can't relax though, she can see it in his eyes, he thinks its going to get snatched away from them again. She kind of wants to tell him that it won't, and that even if it will that they should just enjoy it while they can.

Then Guy tells her she is to be married.

When she was young she had dreamt of her wedding day, of her pretty dress and her hair braided with flowers. Her mother would have cried and Guy would have smiled and her father would have given her away. It would have been summer, there would have strawberries. Her husband would have been a knight, full of chivalry and courage, with kind eyes and strong arms.

It would have been perfect.

But that was before when things like that were still possible.

"His name is Lord Thornton, he's a little older than you but he's rich and - "

She cuts him off, "No."

He doesn't budge.

She sees red, he's ruining her life _again._

* * *

She knows Guy sees the cruelty in Thornton's gaze. The way he leers at her like a wolf eyeing up a piece of meat.

"Don't make me do this," she pleads. "Guy, _please." _

Her brother's eyes are blank and his voice is sandpaper rough, "Goodbye, Isabella."

* * *

She looks out of her window in her high tower and wonders how long it would take her to die if she jumps.

Those who take their own lives are condemned to hell, where their souls will be torn apart by demons. She hears Thornton's heavy boots outside and wonders if hell wouldn't better.

She has fine dresses and food and maids. She'll never go hungry again. Never shiver her way through nights or have to flee from cut-throat outlaws but she thinks she might prefer that. She might prefer that to the bruises on her hips and the rope burn on her wrists and her throat ripped raw from screaming.

* * *

It takes a while, her transformation.

She's not Isabella of Gisborne anymore, she hasn't been for a long time. That little girl died somewhere in France, or maybe it was earlier, burning up with her parents till they were nothing but charred remains and bone dust. She's not sure what she is now; this empty husk, the only thing she feels much of now is that hot-burn of anger in her breast. The burn that dreams of Guy and Thornton dying.

She will not lie down and die like they want her too. She will not play the loyal wife, quiet and meek.

She will bide her time and cover her bruises and smile prettily and dream of the day when she can cut Thornton's throat.


End file.
